Mr. and Mrs. Howl

Caught two films today, and liked ’em both, for different reasons.

Mr. and Mrs. Smith, of course, has nothing to do with the 1940s screwball comedy of that name directed by Alfred Hitchcock, which I saw in film school years ago and now barely remember. Instead, it is the much ballyhooed homewrecker of a film that allegedly brought Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie together and thus tore Pitt away from his wife and partner of six years; and, oh irony of ironies, the film concerns a married couple that feels its six-year marriage needs a little therapy. Oh, and FWIW, the two members of this couple also happen to be professional assassins who have kept their jobs secret from each other.

It’s a little like a cross between 1994’s True Lies, but without the misogyny, and 1989’s The War of the Roses. But only a little. You could also say the film represents an effort by director Doug Liman to pair the cozy relationship humour of his first, smaller hit Swingers with the action-packed thrills of his later, bigger hit The Bourne Identity. (In between those two, he also directed Go, which also straddled the line a bit, though I mainly remember it for its nonlinear structure, which was a common enough trick among indie filmmakers in the days after Pulp Fiction.)

Like a lot of couples and partnerships, the tango between all these different genres hits a few rough patches, but it hangs together in the end, and I found I cared about the various characters just enough to root for them and be amused by them. The flashback showing how Pitt and Jolie first met is particularly charming, and the violence is never serious enough to get in the way of the humour. The film is pretty obviously just using an exaggerated form of an already exaggerated genre to make light of humdrum marital difficulties, and seen in that light, it’s not bad.

As for the film’s tabloid subtext, I couldn’t care less. Yes, I was aware of how ironic it was to see Pitt play a man who wants to save his marriage, even as his own real-life marriage was apparently unravelling; but as far as Jolie is concerned, the only moment I ever became aware of her real life was during a scene in which a suburban mom hands a baby over to her, leaving Jolie to look distinctly uncomfortable with a child in her hands — and part of the humour there, of course, comes from the fact that Jolie’s fondness for children is a huge part of her real-life persona.

Oh, and FWIW, unless I’m confusing his character with another one, I believe Chris Weitz (who, together with his brother Paul, co-directed American Pie and About a Boy, co-wrote Antz, and co-starred in Chuck & Buck) plays the neighbour from whom the Smiths steal a couple of “JESUS ROCKS!” jackets. Because, of course, every suburban paradise must have its Ned Flanders.

Then, in the evening, Howl’s Moving Castle. And suffice to say it’s a strange, enchanting, perplexing, epic, and occasionally just plain silly movie that I would be happy to leave in a kid’s DVD library.

My wife has read the book, and she tells me the story has been significantly altered, but in a very Japanese sort of way and not in the Hollywood sort of way that we are used to seeing books modified. Still, at least one of the alterations concerns an “idiotic war” that is a major part of the film but was apparently not in the book, and the scenes of aerial bombardment caused me to think two things: (1) This reminds me of the indications we have seen that the film version of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe will really play up the Nazi attacks on London at the beginning of the story. (2) Oh, great, yet another movie that will be cited as a critique of the Bush administration.

But hey, I did like the film; the bouncing scarecrow, the little dog, the big fat witch, the talking flame, the multiple-choice portal… all these things were rather appealing, really. And I was startled to see Jean Simmons, star of The Robe (1953) and Spartacus (1960), listed in the credits as the voice of “Old Sophie”; I had no idea she was still alive! (FWIW, “Young Sophie” is voiced by Dear Frankie‘s Emily Mortimer.) Lauren Bacall is also on hand to provide yet another dash of classic old-time Hollywood glamour, as the voice of a semi-villainous witch who casts a spell on Sophie. I wonder if the original Japanese voices had a similar cachet.